Post by DM Leverage on Mar 23, 2012 6:23:57 GMT -5
Menzoberranzan
The City of Spiders may be the greatest danger facing the Silver Marches today. While the drow of Menzoberranzan lack the sheer numbers of the orcs and humanoids of the Spine of the World, or the raw power of a great wyrm like Klauth, virtually every major settlement in the North lies within their reach. Secret tunnels, trackless spiderwebs of caverns and passages, and old portals riddle the Underdark for many miles around Menzoberranzan, offering ready egress to drow scouts, spies, assassins - or armies. The existence of Menzoberranzan and the threat it poses to the surface world is one of the primary reasons behind the creation of the confederacy of the Silver Marches. Sundabar, Everlund, Silvermoon, and the great dwarf citadels are united in their poopsition of the evil realm beneath their feet.
Menzoberranzan lies beneath the upper vale of the Surbrin, between the Moonwood and the Frost Hills. It is close to Blingdenstone, Mithral Hall, and the northern shores of the Darklake. The city occupies a great cavern more than two miles across and nearly a thousand feet in height. Towering stalagmites and pillars rise from the floor of the cavern, some hundreds of feet in height. With centuries of painstaking work the drow have transformed these features into darkly beautiful spired castles carved from the very rock. Ledges and plateaus break up the cavern floor, separating the drow noble houses (whose homes are found on the higher ledges) from the vast sprawl of the city and its weird mushroom forests.
Menzoberranzan boasts a population of more than thirty thousand sentient creatures. Drow only comprise about one-half of this number. Most of the rest are slaves - mainly bugbears, goblins, kobolds, ogres, orcs, minotaurs, quaggoths, and trolls. The smaller and weaker of these slaves perform the drudge-work of the city and tend the surroudning mushroom-fields and rothe pastures. Larger and more powerful creatures serve as slave-soldiers, vast levies of hulking bruts who form the bulk of a drow army.
[Trimmed for Server Timeline reasons]
The drow care quite clever in playing off slave races against each other, using the bugbears and ogres as overseers to keep the goblins and orcs in line, and then in turn setting the minotaurs and trolls over the bugbears and ogres. Disobedient or rebellious slaves are killed in spectacularly horrible ways, and savage reprisals inflict similar fates on many of their fellows - which means that the slaves themselves quickly smother most outbreaks of resistance to make sure no drow ever has cause to order such reprisals.
[Trimmed for Server Timeline reasons]
The matrons of the leading noble houses rule Menzoberranzan. Most of these are clerics of Lolth, since priestesses of the Spider Queen have long held the highest positions in drow society. Triel Baenre is the matron of House Baenre, the foremost of the houses of Menzoberranzan. House Baenre formerly had a much stronger positino in the city, but the disasterous failure of the attack on Mithral Hall and the death of Triel's mother Yvonnel, an old and crafty drow who exercised her power with complete ruthlessness, greatly weakened House Baenre's eminence in the city. Triel Baenre must carefully court, intimidate, and bluff the matrons of the lesser houses to maintain her position.
[Trimmed for Timeline Reasons]
Due to the chaotic and evil nature of the drow and Lolth's rule through her priestesses, the great houses of Menzoberranzan spend much of their time scheming against each other. pulling together to launch a major war of aggression is difficult for the matron mothers and Triel is hesitant to cll for another crusade. If her rivals decide to oppose her, or even sabotage the war effort through subtle mismanagement or willful disobedience, she might precipitate Baenre's final fall. In the meantime Menzoberranzan bides its time and rebuilds its strength, engaging in commerce with nearby Underdark powers. Travelers from other settlements, or even the surface, can expect a cool welcome in Menzoberranzan - so lnog as they come to trade, stay well clear of noble drow, and manage to show that they are not easy prey for the city's slavers or monsters.
Source: Forgotten Realms - The Silver Marches 3.5, pg 37
The City of Spiders may be the greatest danger facing the Silver Marches today. While the drow of Menzoberranzan lack the sheer numbers of the orcs and humanoids of the Spine of the World, or the raw power of a great wyrm like Klauth, virtually every major settlement in the North lies within their reach. Secret tunnels, trackless spiderwebs of caverns and passages, and old portals riddle the Underdark for many miles around Menzoberranzan, offering ready egress to drow scouts, spies, assassins - or armies. The existence of Menzoberranzan and the threat it poses to the surface world is one of the primary reasons behind the creation of the confederacy of the Silver Marches. Sundabar, Everlund, Silvermoon, and the great dwarf citadels are united in their poopsition of the evil realm beneath their feet.
Menzoberranzan lies beneath the upper vale of the Surbrin, between the Moonwood and the Frost Hills. It is close to Blingdenstone, Mithral Hall, and the northern shores of the Darklake. The city occupies a great cavern more than two miles across and nearly a thousand feet in height. Towering stalagmites and pillars rise from the floor of the cavern, some hundreds of feet in height. With centuries of painstaking work the drow have transformed these features into darkly beautiful spired castles carved from the very rock. Ledges and plateaus break up the cavern floor, separating the drow noble houses (whose homes are found on the higher ledges) from the vast sprawl of the city and its weird mushroom forests.
Menzoberranzan boasts a population of more than thirty thousand sentient creatures. Drow only comprise about one-half of this number. Most of the rest are slaves - mainly bugbears, goblins, kobolds, ogres, orcs, minotaurs, quaggoths, and trolls. The smaller and weaker of these slaves perform the drudge-work of the city and tend the surroudning mushroom-fields and rothe pastures. Larger and more powerful creatures serve as slave-soldiers, vast levies of hulking bruts who form the bulk of a drow army.
[Trimmed for Server Timeline reasons]
The drow care quite clever in playing off slave races against each other, using the bugbears and ogres as overseers to keep the goblins and orcs in line, and then in turn setting the minotaurs and trolls over the bugbears and ogres. Disobedient or rebellious slaves are killed in spectacularly horrible ways, and savage reprisals inflict similar fates on many of their fellows - which means that the slaves themselves quickly smother most outbreaks of resistance to make sure no drow ever has cause to order such reprisals.
[Trimmed for Server Timeline reasons]
The matrons of the leading noble houses rule Menzoberranzan. Most of these are clerics of Lolth, since priestesses of the Spider Queen have long held the highest positions in drow society. Triel Baenre is the matron of House Baenre, the foremost of the houses of Menzoberranzan. House Baenre formerly had a much stronger positino in the city, but the disasterous failure of the attack on Mithral Hall and the death of Triel's mother Yvonnel, an old and crafty drow who exercised her power with complete ruthlessness, greatly weakened House Baenre's eminence in the city. Triel Baenre must carefully court, intimidate, and bluff the matrons of the lesser houses to maintain her position.
[Trimmed for Timeline Reasons]
Due to the chaotic and evil nature of the drow and Lolth's rule through her priestesses, the great houses of Menzoberranzan spend much of their time scheming against each other. pulling together to launch a major war of aggression is difficult for the matron mothers and Triel is hesitant to cll for another crusade. If her rivals decide to oppose her, or even sabotage the war effort through subtle mismanagement or willful disobedience, she might precipitate Baenre's final fall. In the meantime Menzoberranzan bides its time and rebuilds its strength, engaging in commerce with nearby Underdark powers. Travelers from other settlements, or even the surface, can expect a cool welcome in Menzoberranzan - so lnog as they come to trade, stay well clear of noble drow, and manage to show that they are not easy prey for the city's slavers or monsters.
Source: Forgotten Realms - The Silver Marches 3.5, pg 37